Chile is a long, narrow country on the west coast of South America. It is about ten times as long as it is wide and stretches 2,650 miles from north to south. It has a varied climate and topography, from its deserts in the north to rugged, snow-capped central mountain ranges to its rainy south. For nearly 300 years, Chile was a Spanish colony. It gained independence in 1818, after which it has been ruled by mostly by democratically elected governments, with the exception of military dictatorships in the late 1920s and then from 1973 to 1989. About two-thirds of Chile's people are of mixed Indian and Spanish ancestry. The descendants of the original Araucanian Indians form a tiny minority. Spanish, the official language, is spoken by nearly all the population with the exception of some Indians, who retain their own tongues. About 76 percent of the population is Roman Catholic.